Tetra Pak plant refused to print packaging for Vkusnoteevo kefir

Tetra Pak does not allow its plant in the Moscow region to print packaging for kefir and fermented baked MILK.Molvest Group, one of the five largest producers of dairy products, faced such a problem.

In an interview with RBC, Arkady Ponomarev, founder of the Molvest company, which produces products under the Vkusnoteevo, Tender Age and Fruate brands and is one of the top 5 largest raw milk processors in the country, spoke about problems with packaging for a number of dairy products in an interview with RBC. .

“Now the transnational company Tetra Pak, which is located in Sweden, is behaving ugly towards RUSSIA. it prohibits the plant from printing packaging for such national products as kefir and fermented baked milk,” Ponomarev said. According to him, Tetra Pak does not give its plant in Lobnya, Moscow Region, the budget and permission to produce packaging for these products, although it still allows the local plant to print packaging for milk. Tetra Pak accounts for about 50% of the carton packaging Molvest uses, its founder estimates.

The founder of "Vkusnoteevo" - RBC: "Probably we won't get to milk in cans" Business

The Swiss packaging manufacturer and distributor of food products, the Swiss Tetra Laval, which includes Tetra Pak, after the start of Russia's military special operation in Ukraine, announced in March that it would provide humanitarian assistance to Ukrainian refugees in the amount of €10 million, but did not report on limiting operations in Russia. Representatives of Tetra Laval and Tetra Pak did not respond to RBC's request at the time of publication.

The share of Tetra Pak packaging for kefir and ryazhenka in Russia is “relatively small, but very sensitive for a number of producers,” admits Artem Belov, general DIRECTOR of the National Union of Milk Producers. He did not specify whether other manufacturers besides Molvest faced problems. RBC sent a request to the Russian offices of Danone and PepsiCo, which are the largest processors of raw milk.

Earlier in March, the media reported that dairy enterprises warned the Ministry of Industry and Trade about possible interruptions in the supply of dairy products due to the lack of packaging for long-term storage products, which is produced by Russian factories of two manufacturers: Tetra Pak and Norwegian Elopak, which suspended operations in Russia. Due to the lack of packaging, the supply of not only milk, but also juices to stores began to fail: manufacturers, as a Vedomosti source said, are considering alternative packaging options - up to cans.

Kefir and fermented baked milk will not disappear from the shelves of Russian stores due to problems with packaging, and “probably we won’t get to milk in cans” either, Ponomarev reassures. Molvest has stocked enough packaging and is already replacing supplies from Tetra Pak with products from other suppliers, he said.

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However, it is problematic to replace packaging with domestic products: many Russian manufacturers work on Tetra Pak equipment, and raw materials are obtained from abroad: bleached cardboard is imported from Finland, and the only Russian plant that produces it, Svetogorsk Pulp and Paper Mill, belongs to the American corporation Sylvamo. Foreign-made polyethylene, paints and aluminum foil are used in food production. Domestic polyethylene is suitable only for outer packaging, but another layer of polyethylene, which is in the middle of the package, is imported to Russia from Germany, Ponomarev explains.

The country has the raw materials necessary for the production of packaging, as well as all the equipment for its printing, notes the founder of Molvest. In his opinion, the state should immediately intervene in the situation and introduce administrative control so that factories that can print packaging can start working again. At the same time, Ponomarev admits that in the near future there may be some simplification of packaging, which consumers will notice. “Perhaps the cardboard of the packaging will no longer be white, but brown, or the pattern will not be too bright. Or let's go back to the fact that there will be no protective films in the cheese packages - the heads will be cut in the store, ”says Ponomarev.